"Type­ 2 Diabetes and the Diet Prescription" Time magazine

Type­ 2 Diabetes and the Diet Prescription
Mandy Oaklander / Chicago @mandyoaklander Jan. 14, 2016

A deceptively simple approach is showing promise

Dr. Monica Peek had been telling her patients for years that food can be medicine, but it wasn’t until she started scribbling down actual prescriptions on paper–“I recommend the following nutrition for this patient”–that they started taking her seriously.

Over time, her advice gained enough traction that those diet prescriptions are now at the heart of a novel study supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Merck Foundation that’s challenging the status quo of type 2 diabetes prevention and treatment.

Download the rest of the piece:
Type-2 Diabetes and the Diet Prescription _ TIME_25Jan2016.pdf (2.7 MB)

This article seems long on generalities and platitudes, short on specifics. You can’t really determine with any precision just what specific diet advice people are being given, nor are there any metrics or measurements to speak of, so aside from the warm fuzzy statements, it’s not really possible to gauge how effective the whole thing is.

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I definitely agree, @David_dns. At least it clearly states that they’re not suggesting reversing T2D, and they kept connections between activity and fat to T2D in terms of risk rather than cause. Better than a lot of the medical community.

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I read this in the actual print version of Time. My reaction was “SIGH”. They mentioned how they take participants to the grocery store with a NUTRITIONIST to help them make better choices. As we know, anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, if you are a PWD, you should be seeing a Registered Dietitian. Then they were mentioning the better choices in breakfast cereals should be whole grains. There was a large picture showing everyone in the checkout line with armloads of Raisin Bran and Honey Nut Cheerios. I recently asked a family member w/ T2D to check their blood a few hours after eating a small bowl of raisin bran, and gee, they were surprised to see a number well into the 200s. sigh.

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I don’t TOUCH breakfast cereals of any sort whatever. That includes bran, shredded wheat, you name it. Might as well just sit down and eat a bowl of sugar. That’s my meter’s opinion, not mine.

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I agree with your sentiment. If these efforts to educate T2Ds about food simply emphasized “eat to your meter,” it would be all the education they need. I don’t hold a great deal of respect for the diabetes knowledge of the average dietitian, however. Their organization, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics or AND still believe that carbs are essential to a healthy diet and are big proponents of healthy whole grains,

I noticed that box of Cheerios on the check-out counter, too. Was this a before education snapshot or a post-education one? As much as I disagree with dietitians, they have a better understanding of food science than the average self-appointed nutritionist. I just wish they would put more faith in “eat to your meter” than they do in their textbook understanding of diabetes.

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it didn’t occur to me that the picture could be post -education. just having the picture there says to me it is not.

the last time I went to a RD (few years ago) I mentioned that I was doing a lowish carb diet with very little fruit. she was fine with it.

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@MarieB – I may generalize too much about dietitians. I’m sure there are more enlightened ones. Your dietitian wisely looked at your entire situation and concluded that you were making good nutrition choices. I am pleased to see that when it happens. I guess I’ve usually experienced the more doctrinaire ones.

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Though I don’t often have cereal for breakfast these days (… really I almost never do, but ‘not often’ sounds better to me… ), when I did, I examined cereals for relative carb content and effect on my BG, etc. Raisin Bran was one of the WORST, with Honey Nut Cheerios (one of my favourites) not all that far behind it. Life Cereal ended up being my choice among mainstream products, though a few of the overpriced “healthy” cereals worked relatively well. Again, these days, cereal is more of a treat than anything else – At least for now…

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An oldie but a goodie:

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There was only one dietician I really love and like as a diabetic. I’ve seen 4 total, the other 3 were complete crap and left me feeling so dang confused. She (my favorite one) lead a whole program geared toward training new diabetics how to take care of themselves and educating them. She was awesome! She was also a T2 diabetic. Sadly, she retired the year after I finished the diabetes program and the program itself, which was too awesome for words, was cut from the hospital’s budget. Ain’t that always how it goes, something great gets cut. I find most diabetics can run circles around dieticians unless they are a diabetic and/or they have extensive experience with diabetics tha’ts legitimate.

As for breakfast cereal, there are a couple I just couldn’t part ways with after I was diagnosed, but for the most part, I don’t eat cereal anymore too many carbs. For me, its portion control that I usually have cereal as “treat” than for breakfast. If I have it in small amounts, I can bolus the right amount and come back down quickly. I find it hard to believe that before being diagnosed, I actually ate that crap for breakfast. At the same time, its oh so good :blush:

Busybee

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